


That One JaeYong Zombie Apocalypse Fic

by anygay



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23700502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anygay/pseuds/anygay
Summary: Jaehyun refuses to be a lovestruck adolescent in the thicke of the apocalypse.But maybe he has thought of Taeyong in white, sure. They could both be in suits. It would be epic; just the pair of them announcing their vows in a church while they swing a bat around and kill undead priests and nuns as Unchained Melody echoes through the ceiling and pews. Romance. Or Taeyong could be in a gown. Hell, Jaehyun would be Down for the Gown. As long as it’s not a hospital gown. Which unfortunately is what Taeyong is wearing today.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	That One JaeYong Zombie Apocalypse Fic

**Author's Note:**

> i had this scene stuck in my head and i wanted to write it down.
> 
> re: title  
> idk maybe this is my thing now. i'm the author with the worst fic titles.

Jaehyun refuses to be a lovestruck adolescent in the thicke of the apocalypse. 

But maybe he has thought of Taeyong in white, sure. They could both be in suits. It would be epic; just the pair of them announcing their vows in a church while they swing a bat around and kill undead priests and nuns as Unchained Melody echoes through the ceiling and pews. Romance. Or Taeyong could be in a gown. Hell, Jaehyun would be Down for the Gown. As long as it’s not a hospital gown. Which unfortunately is what Taeyong is wearing today.

He’s buried in two blankets -- Taeyong is the type to get cold easily -- needles and tubes connecting varying cocktails of solutions into his skin that’s meant to prep him for the operation. Jaehyun hates that descriptor. You prep food, not humans. But he supposes there’s very little difference between the two as of late.

“You know,” Taeyong starts, playing with the hospital tag fastened around his wrist, “if you didn’t transfer during my last year of high school, I would have remained a model student.”

Jaehyun feigns taking full offence, jaw dropping, hand to his chest. “So it’s all my fault?”

Taeyong smirks. “You’re a bad influence, Jeong Jaehyun.”

“That’s convenient.” Jaehyun pokes at the blankets where he knows Taeyong’s knee is.

In the three years since high school ended -- or was supposed to end -- the world has gone to absolute shit. They say that it has to get bad before it gets good. What they don’t tell you is that it gets bad all over again right after the Most Good. But Taeyong thinks that maybe he’s fine with that. Because the Most Good it’s ever going to get anyway is Jaehyun walking into their classroom after missing the first week, polo untucked, smelling like cigarette smoke and strong cologne. Lee Taeyong saw him then and thought that it must be nice, being so unbothered.

This was until he got to know him and realized soon after that everything bothered Jaehyun.  _ Everything _ . He takes things in fully and with his whole being. Every memory isn’t documented in dates, but in smells and vaguely family pieces of clothing and vintage houses and architecture. Every word is a promise. And every promise can be broken and mended. Jaehyun is chaos within chaos, and Taeyong has enjoyed every adventure since. He tries for Jaehyun’s hand, the same one he used to poke Taeyong’s leg, but it’s just out of reach. Jaehyun matches the effort in no time, slender fingers sliding against Taeyong’s palm. 

They’re both focused on their hands, Jaehyun’s thumb running along the curved heel of Taeyong’s palm, languid, calm. As if they have all the time in the world. Where in fact they only have half an hour left. “Do you remember the first time we talked?”

Jaehyun rests his cheek on his arm, blinking up at Taeyong’s face that knows no bad lighting or angle. “No.”Jaehyun remembers it perfectly well. He’s rearranged and studied that moment in his mind enough times that those couple of hours will require probably a day for Jaehyun to tell in absolute detail. But he likes hearing Taeyong tell it. “How did it go again?”

Taeyong rolls his eyes, but he bites. “We were in the library. We were catching up on our exams since we’d both missed the midterms. We were sharing a table but you were four seats down.”

“Four? I couldn’t have sat that far away. It was probably two.” Taeyong was right. It was four.

“...no, it was four,” Taeyong corrects, tone slightly condescending. “I can count. Did you know that. That I can count?”

“Yeah, it’s one of my favorite things about you--” Jaehyun’s voice is muffled by Taeyong’s hand.

Taeyong presses on with a pointed, “ _ Anyway _ ,” clearing his throat. “A folded note flies onto my test paper. I gasped.”

“You did not gasp,” comes Jaehyun’s response from under Taeyong’s palm. Taeyong wipes the spit on his blanket and places his hand back in Jaehyun’s. “Lee Taeyong has never gasped in a library, ever.”

“Do you wanna tell it?”

Jaehyun phantom zips his mouth shut and waits for Taeyong to continue.

“After my very believable and accurate gasp, I look to where you are and you’re looking at your test. I look around and it’s just us. So I think to myself, could it be? Could  _ the  _ Jeong Jaehyun, the coolest and most popular--”

“Please stop--”

“-- toss  _ me _ ? A note?” Taeyong directs his gaze at Jaehyun, studying his features and comparing it to that day in school. Not much has changed. Except maybe the fact that they make a lot of eye contact now. “I unfolded it. My heart was beating so fast, I thought I was gonna pass out. And there, written in that note, was probably the most romantic thing I’d ever been asked. Do you remember what you wrote?”

Jaehyun’s brows furrowed. “Didn’t I ask if you had a correction--”

“-- correction pen,” Taeyong says in synch with Jaehyun, nodding along for emphasis. “Best day of my life.”

“You said no,” Jaehyun continues. “And then didn’t speak to me again.”

“Actually…” It’s a few years late, but Taeyong finds that maybe Jaehyun needed to hear this now, “I did have one.”

Jaehyun smiles at him for a few seconds, realization dawned on him, starting from his eyes, then his lips. “You lied?”

Jaehyun thinks it’s adorable when Taeyong avoids his gaze, face scrunched up like he’d just bit into a lemon. “I wasn’t sure if I had one at first so I just said no. And then after the test, I looked at my pencil case and it turns out I had one. I lied by accident.”

“So our entire relationship is built on a lie.”

“Yes,” Taeyong responds, stone faced.

Jaehyun sits back up, saying, “We should break up,” mirroring Taeyong’s monotony.

Taeyong snaps his fingers, as if stuck by an epiphany, pausing for dramatic effect before a dry, “No,” falls from his lips.

Jaehyun is the first to break, a smile stretching across his lips wide enough that every dimple is on full display. “That’s a good point. Okay, we don’t break up.”

“Good. We can just casually spend the rest of our lives together.”

Jaehyun doesn’t mean to. If he could help it -- and lord knows he wishes he could -- he’d just keep on going like everything is business as usual. But Taeyong’s words feel like stones piling onto his heart. And it keeps going, stones clicking and falling and weighing heavier by the second, until his smile is reduced to a tight line and he starts looking at Taeyong in the most heartbreaking way.

Taeyong frowns as he leans forward, both his hands on Jaehyun’s now, connecting their foreheads. “Hey, hey…” He whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for.”

“I know.  _ Still _ .”

Jaehyun has always been aware of the bite marks that have scarred Taeyong’s arms. On this day, they look especially painful and angry. Ever since the pandemic, and they’d lost everyone, they hadn’t gone a day without each other. Which means that Jaehyun remembers how Taeyong had acquired each bite. But the one that sticks with him is the first; before they were aware that Taeyong was immune to the virus. 

That was the night Jaehyun bound Taeyong to the bed and hugged a shotgun to his chest, sat on the floor of one corner of the room. Taeyong didn’t want to fall asleep. Neither did Jaehyun. And when the sun came up and Taeyong didn’t turn, Jaehyun thought it was all a dream.

Taeyong says it still hurts enough to make him fall to his knees. “It’s like when your arm falls asleep and it’s thousands of needles pricking at your skin at the same time. But that plus a million.”

Jaehyun doesn’t remember which house any more, which day it was, only that it was right before summer started and they’d just come across fresh watermelons. Taeyong cut it up while Jaehyun fiddled with a radio he had found in one of the rooms. And the announcement just came on, that a cure was being developed. They celebrated that night before setting off to find the headquarters. And all Taeyong could talk about was returning to normal, for him and Jaehyun -- “finally, a fucking end to all of this.”

Two things became very clear to the both of them when they stepped into that facility two weeks ago. The first was that they were incredibly naive. Neither of them knew how vaccines worked. Taeyong took a stab in the dark and thought that they’d inject him with the virus and extract whatever developed from that, saying that that was how vaccines were procured. And while Taeyong was right about vaccines, apparently he was mistaken about cures.

The second discovery that crashed on them like a cartoon piano dangling over their heads was not that Taeyong had to die in order to cure the world. It was that this entire thing was so much bigger than the both of them. Jaehyun caught the irony in that, when they sat in that office and were spoken to by experts; that when they were offered hope, Jaehyun had never felt more hopeless.

The seconds of silence between the doctor behind the desk asking Taeyong if he wanted to proceed and Taeyong’s response stretched for an eternity for Jaehyun. And when Taeyong finally said that he’d do it, just like that, without looking at Jaehyun -- instead proceeding to sign contract after contract -- Jaehyun found that he couldn’t breathe. They were just kids, he thought. 

They went on with the tests and the next steps for two weeks, and when they were done Jaehyun and Taeyong talked about anything and everything except what was waiting at the end. They went out for walks, ate well for the first time in a long time, and even befriended staff members who spoke not one bad word about Taeyong. How could they not? He was the kid that was going to give his life to heal them all. They saw Lee Taeyong as life where Jaehyun only saw death.

Taeyong was dead the moment they stepped into this place, and the rest of their time together was a two-week wake.

“Jaehyun?”

Taeyong had this impression of Jaehyun when they’d first met, thinking that Jaehyun was cool because he didn’t give a fuck. But the truth was that Jaehyun was just airheaded sometimes. Okay, a lot of times. He got the dates wrong for when the first day of school was, ended up missing a week. And woke up late because he worked nights at a restaurant and got cigarette ash all over his shirt while he was cleaning up. That was the problem; Jaehyun thought too little and felt too much. Every big decision he’d ever made in his life was in pursuit of what made his chest feel the fullest. 

Their last two weeks left him emptier than ever. He walked with Taeyong, joked with Taeyong, slept with Taeyong -- he was physically there. But because feeling was what he did best, and he couldn’t even do that properly, instead he felt nothing. And time sure does fly when you feel nothing.

Whatever he’d suppressed is starting to claw its way back up to the surface. Jaehyun can feel it simmering, building, in the pit of his stomach. It’s catching up to them, to this moment and it’s going to fill the room--

“Jaehyun, you’re crying,” Taeyong observes, in the softest voice Jaehyun has ever heard from him. 

“What…”

Taeyong’s thumbs away the tears from Jaehyun’s cheeks, his lips parted in an attempt to say more.

“Don’t do it,” Jaehyun blurts out. He grabs Taeyong’s wrist when he senses that they’re about to leave the sides of his face. “ _ Don’t _ do it.”

Jaehyun says it quietly the first couple of times, not only because there’s security right outside but for his own benefit. Though they aren’t his proudest moments, Jaehyun has managed to wiggle his way out of a parking ticket fine quite a few times. He gives it the works, the smile, the charm, the big laugh on a joke that he doesn’t really think is that funny. Again, he’s not proud of it.

However, this has got to be his most shameful moment. This right here, where he pins Taeyong’s hands to the sides of his face and shakily asks him to put the two of them before the rest of the world. “Please? Please don’t do it.”

Taeyong lets out a breath, expression showing every color of bafflement and incredulousness. “But I thought, I thought you… you said you were fine with--”

“I lied,” Jaehyun simply pronounces. “I’m not fine. How can I ever be fine with this?”

“I,I,” Taeyong’s gaze wanders to the door, and every other place of the room. “I can’t, Jaehyun.”

“Why not?” Jaehyun gets up and sits on the bit of space on the bed, next to Taeyong. 

“Because it’s too late.”

“No, it’s not. We can still do something about this.”

“How?” Taeyong’s tone is challenging now. But if there’s one thing that sales has taught Jaehyun, you don’t need a yes right away. You just need them to keep asking questions. 

“Well, I don’t know. I could--” Jaehyun thinks of something on the spot. “I could talk to The Board, the doctors-- you still have rights. They can’t force you to do this.”

“I signed a contract.”

“Fuck the contract.”

“What about everyone else? What about the pandemic?”

“What about us?” Jaehyun pressed his palms together like Christians before the holy ghost. He’d only have to get on his knees for this to be the ultimate display of desperation. 

“Jaehyun, think for a second. Think of what you’re asking of me.” Taeyong hooks a finger on the neckline of the hospital gown, tugging it down. The room feels smaller somehow. “I have the opportunity to save millions. And you’re asking me to turn away from that.”

“What I’m asking… what I’m  _ saying  _ is,” Jaehyun’s cheeks are glistening with tears, spit gathering on the sides of his mouth, nose running. “You are the one real thing, the  _ only  _ thing, left here for me. And in all of those millions you so desperately want to save, I won’t be one of them. Not that million or the million after that.”

Taeyong almost sounds furious, shaking his head slowly throughout Jaehyun’s statements. By the time Jaehyun is done, Taeyong is glaring at him as he calmly asks, “What do you  _ mean _ , Jaehyun? Me doing this means a better world for you too. It could be everything we’ve ever talked about since hearing about a cure. An end to this hell.” Taeyong places his hand on the curve of Jaehyun’s neck, dampened by tears. “Remember?”

“This is not the price we agreed to pay, Taeyong.” Jaehyun layers his hand over Taeyong’s. “It’s too high a cost. And there is no world, no universe that I can imagine to be  _ better _ , if you’re not in it.” Jaehyun used to think that the way they live now, after the virus, is the real hell. But now he knows with absolute certainty that it isn’t. He isn’t lovestruck. He isn’t. It’s just that hell, for him, is any world without Taeyong in it.

Taeyong slips his hand from Jaehyun’s grasp, index finger and thumb stretched across his own forehead as they let the silence take over them. Even the silence is different. It’s never quite like it used to be. There’s always the hum of something outside, footsteps and running and teeth. 

He lost, Jaehyun thinks. He’s lost Taeyong. He knows he’s being unfair and he knows that he’s made his selfish quota for that year. But it doesn’t matter. By the time this is all over, he can’t think of anything else that’ll drive him to be that selfish ever again. Perhaps it’s childish of him and maybe Taeyong is right. Maybe he doesn’t fully comprehend what he’s asking. 

“I’ll go call the doctor.” 

Taeyong pinching Jaehyun’s sleeve right as he stands up isn’t forceful, so for a second Jaehyun thinks that he imagined it. Until he turns around and sees Taeyong’s hand on his sleeve, the blank stare, the heavy breathing. 

And then Taeyong says, “let’s do it.”

And Jaehyun feels as though the floor is trying to escape him. “Let’s do it?”

Taeyong nods, looking up at Jaehyun now. “Let’s get out of here.”

Shocked, Jaehyun watches as Taeyong starts pulling the needles frantically off his scarred arms, crawling out of bed. He’s still trying to catch up when Taeyong finds his place by Jaehyun’s side and asks, “Do you have your gun?”

“No,” Jaehyun answers, still in disbelief. “They took all our weapons when we came in here.”

“Shit. Okay.” Taeyong makes a dash for the bathroom and Jaehyun can hear clattering. He focuses on the blood painting the tips of the needles that were -- merely seconds ago -- inside Taeyong’s veins. 

Taeyong emerges from the bathroom with half a toothbrush, the non-bristle end shaper from where the rest of the plastic handle used to be connected. He hands the toothbrush to Jaehyun, who stares at it dumbly. “Did you just turn a toothbrush into a sieve by breaking it in half?”

“Yeah,” Taeyong walks over the door, peeping out of the glass slit. “Okay, I see about five security guards. Do you think you can take them?”

Jaehyun holds up the toothbrush. “With  _ this _ ?”

“Yeah.”

“Depends. How bad are their teeth?”

“ _ Jaehyun _ .”

Taeyong gets dressed, jumping into his jeans until they slide up to his waist, hurriedly slipping his shirt on. Just as it falls to the small of his back, Jaehyun pulls him close by the hem, and kisses him. With Taeyong’s arms around Jaehyun’s neck, Jaehyun guiding his hands down Taeyong’s sides, these are the moments, Jaehyun thinks, where they exist outside of time. There are no infinite spaces between seconds, instead measured in heartbeats and deep breaths and uncertainty.

They’re so stupid, Taeyong thinks. So.  _ Kicks the door open _ . Fucking.  _ Jaehyun grabs his hand and pulls him toward the fire exit _ . Stupid.

They make it a couple of feet away from the room before they’re pulled apart by security. Jaehyun is being held down by two suits, Taeyong being dragged back into the room. A nurse in the nurses’ station picks up the phone and alerts someone higher up. A doctor Taeyong doesn’t recognize makes a beeline for him as he’s being manhandled, telling security to not be so rough with him. And while one of the suits is distracted by this, Taeyong manages to pull one arm free and in one swoop, fishes a pistol from inside one of the suits’ jackets. He aims at them first as he backs away, out of the room. 

Taeyong wills his hands to stop shaking as he grips the pistol with both hands, but his stance is shaky and his eyes are darting around. He probably looks manic. When he meets Jaehyun’s gaze -- now stood up, one of the suits has an arm around his neck from behind, his other hand locking Jaehyun’s to the small of his back -- he finds Jaehyun Looking back at him with fear and a hint of trust. He nods, as if to tell Taeyong to go on, that he’s got this.

Taeyong then tilts the pistol back, barrel parallel to his Adam's apple, muzzle digging up into the underside of his chin. 

“Let him go,” Taeyong instructs the security guard that's holding Jaehyun in place. He’s hesitant until someone from behind the crowd echoes Taeyong’s request.

The cloud of lab coats and scrubs part so that Dr. Moon Taeil could walk through the front, both his hands are extended forward, that way you would approach a wild animal.

Jaehyun is released upon the doctor’s request, and is shoved in Taeyong’s direction. He stands behind Taeyong, hands digging into his front pockets. 

“Taeyong,” Taeil begins, “is this really necessary?”

“I don’t know. Are you gonna let us go?”

Taeil tilts his head to the side, tongue peeking from the corner of his lips, contemplative. “I thought we had an agreement. You signed a contract.”

“Fuck your contract,” Jaehyun adds unhelpfully from behind Taeyong.

Taeyong raises his free hand, signalling Jaehyun that he’ll be doing the talking. Only to say in a more solemn tone, “fuck your contract.”

“Maybe you just need more time.” Taeyong can see the beads of sweat crawling down Taeil’s temples. “We can work something out. You don’t have to leave.”

“Really, doctor?” Taeyong looks at the staff, the security guards, the nurse that was on the phone earlier. “You have that power here? You can convince every member on The Board not to drug me right now, haul me over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and continue with the procedure anyway?”

Taeil drops his hands back to his sides, defeated. “While you’re in here, there’s a better chance if I try. If you walk out right now, I won’t be able to help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I know you don’t. But if you just--”

“Back the fuck up!” Taeyong screams when Taeil takes a step forward. Taeil freezes in his spot, hands back up. “Jaehyun, let’s go.”

They both walk backwards in the direction of the fire exit. Right before the door closes, Taeil shouts from where he’s standing. “Wherever you go, they’ll find you eventually!”

But he’s left talking to the fire exit door gradually fitting back into the frame.


End file.
